Self-introduction: Keith Wilde

[kwilde@magi.com]

When I took my first courses in economics, Paul Samuelson's textbook which
divided economics into micro- and macro- was regarded in some universities
as something akin to a communist plot. By the time I realized that standard
economics was never going to satisfy my interest in the just distribution
of access to productive assets, I had also lost the inclination to change
course radically, or to specialize in either history, ethics or political
philosophy--where my predilections may have fit better.

Partially by acccident, I specialized in natural resource economics and
through that decision became deeply involved in both environmental issues
and also in the distribution of public lands via homestead acts in the
United States and Canada. At a time when environmental economics was too
new to offer secure positions at universities, I elected to work at public
policy economics in a federal department of agriculture (Canada). This
experience augmented earlier work which had focused on irrigation (the U.S.
Bureau of Reclamation) as a technological extension of the geographic
frontier--involving novel techniques of finance and new forms of bondage in
the name of economic independence. My policy work in agriculture focused on
the appropriate choice of technological orientation for a government
agency. It came down firmly on the side of expertise in chemical and
biotechnology for purposes of regulating private industry in the public
interest (health and safety), plus research in ecological techniques for
free distribution via agricultural extension education. The opposition I
encountered to this position gave me abundant sympathy for those who oppose
the solution of social problems via direct goverment action.  As is now
famously apparent in the case of some giant biotechnology companies, the
pattern of policy is to benefit the wealthy at taxpayers' expense--and to
sell dangerous, unregulated products to the unwary and helpless. So much
for my biases.

At the present time my work is of a safely technical nature, in support of
policy models for evaluating proposed changes to the Canada Pension Plan, a
federal social security system.

Another of my activities is reflected at the Internet site www.DemCap.org